?The Castle?

?I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing

Dr. H.H. Holmes

In the summer of 1886, evil stepped into the Englewood community. A growing suburb of Chicago, Englewood flourished with business opportunities due to its proximity to the railroads.

H.H. Holmes managed to secure a Chicago pharmacy by defrauding the pharmacist, and built a block-long, three-story building on the lot across the street. He called this building “The Castle,” and opened it as a hotel for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. The bottom floor of the Castle contained shops, the top his personal office, and the middle floor a maze of over one hundred windowless rooms.

Over a period of three years, Holmes selected female victims from among his hotel’s guests, and tortured them in soundproof and escape proof chambers fitted with gas lines that permitted him to asphyxiate the women at any time.

Holmes had repeatedly changed builders, to ensure that no one truly understood the design of the house he had created who might report it to the police. Once dead, the victims’ bodies went by chute to the basement, where they were either sold to medical schools or cremated and placed in lime pits for destruction.

The Firefighter’s Fingerprint

Firefighter Francis X Leavy was washing the inside first floor? window. A hardworking man, Frank Leavy was a dedicated thirteen-year veteran. He joined the fire department after an eight-year stint in the navy, in which he had enlisted by falsifying his age; he had been fourteen.

In 1915, Leavy married Mary Pucell and by 1921, he was the father of a girl and a boy. Struggling on his $2,220 annual income, Leavy drove a cab and did odd jobs to make extra money.

Friendly, cheerful Leavy was beloved by his family neighbours and comrades in the firehouse.

One day the usually jovial fireman was uncharacteristically quiet and sullen.

His work and that of the other firefighters had been interrupted several times as the register, a stock ticker like device, tapped out signals for the fire in the stockyards that had grown to four alarm proportions.

Although the engine, hook and the Fifteenth Battalion chief buggy were not on the response card, every man knew any or all could wind up at the big fire if special alarms sounded.

As they waited for a possible call, Leavy wasn?t making much progress on the house window.

?This is my last day on the fire department,? he said to fellow firefighter Edward McKevitt.

Pamela Geller is planning a ?Draw the Prophet? event in Garland, Texas in the same location as a Muslim group held a ?Stand with the Prophet? conference in January. The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest will be hosted by the Curtis Caldwell Center, which is owned and operated by the Garland Independent School District.

Geller?s event comes on the wake of the Islamic terrorist attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo in January. Following the attack, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) scheduled the ?Stand with the Prophet? conference at the public school district?s conference center. Geller, the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), scheduled a protest outside the event that was attended by approximately 2,000 people.

During the Free Speech Rally in Garland, Geller spoke with Breitbart Texas about her reaction to the large and loud crowd of protesters. She said that Muslims?are trying to impose restrictions on free speech like they are doing in Paris. ?Thousands of Americans said ?no way!??

?The media can smear us and the President can stand with them,? Geller said. ?We the people are not having it. If there is any proof of that, it?s today. We dwarfed them.?

?If the Western media ran the Danish cartoons back when this Islamic supremacist movement first started gaining steam, the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo would be alive today,? Geller stated in response to an inquiry from Breitbart Texas. ?That said, the European press ran the Hebdo cartoons in the wake of that jihad slaughter. But the American press would not. The beacon of freedom, the shining light on a hill, is running scared. Well, that?s not who we are. The elites do not represent the people.?

?Enough is enough,? she explained. ?They?re just cartoons. We?re holding this exhibit and cartoon contest to show how insane the world has become ? with people in the free world tiptoeing in terror around supremacist thugs who actually commit murder over cartoons. If we can?t stand up for the freedom of speech, we will lose it ? and with it, free society.?

If you agree with me that’s nice, but what I really want to achieve is to make you question the status quo, look between the lines and do your own research. Do not be a passive observer in this game we call life.

Gun rights activists have often held up Chicago as an example of the failures of gun control. The city has historically had some of the strictest laws against gun ownership while also suffering under some of the worst crime rates in the US. In 2012,?Chicago surpassed New York?as America?s murder capital. However, after the?US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit?struck down Illinois??ban?on concealed carry in December of 2012, a concealed carry program was implemented in the state this year, finally and for the first time allowing law-abiding Chicago residents to arm themselves in public against the city?s seemingly-perpetual crime wave.

According to?The Washington Times,?now that citizens in Chicago can legally defend themselves, the city?s historically disastrous crime rates have begun to plummet precipitously. Police department crime statistics note that, in the first quarter of 2014, the homicide rate in Chicago has dropped to a 56-year low. In 2014 so far, burglaries are down by 20%, auto theft rates have dropped by 26%, and robberies leading to arrests are down by 20%.

The Chicago Police Department wasted no time in declaring victory and claiming credit for the drop in crime, but Illinois?State Rifle Association executive director Richard Pearson told?The Washington Times,??The police department hasn?t changed a single tactic ? they haven?t announced a shift in policy or of course ? and yet you have these incredible numbers.? He feels that the drop in crime can at least in part be attributed to the implementation of concealed carry in Illinois. Said Pearson, ?It isn?t any coincidence crime rates started to go down when concealed carry was permitted. Just the idea that the criminals don?t know who?s armed and who isn?t has a deterrence effect.?

As much at home writing editorials as being the subject of them, Cam has won awards, including the Canon Media Award for his work on the Len Brown/Bevan Chuang story. When he’s not creating the news, he tends to be in it, with protagonists using the courts, media and social media to deliver financial as well as death threats.

They say that news is something that someone, somewhere, wants kept quiet. Cam Slater doesn’t do quiet and, as a result, he is a polarising, controversial but highly effective journalist who takes no prisoners.

Photo: Reuters/John GressIt’s an incredible sight. A building covered in ice, with fire fighters working to extinguish an enormous blaze in a warehouse in below-freezing temperatures on January 23, 2013.